My sister Stephanie and my nephew James came up to visit on Monday night. I had a plan for Tuesday. I would bring them up to Woodstock, NY (more about that in the next post).
Well, on the way there, we got a little side tracked. I took Rt.3 North to Rt.28A to Rt.28. It was a little longer than expected. When we popped out of the woods on Rt.28, I didn’t quite know where I was in relation to the next road we needed to take. Stephanie suggested that I ask for directions. Can you believe that?
We headed West on Rt.28 until I saw a stop light. I thought this was the one that went up to Woodstock. I wanted to take Rt.375, but Rt.39 looked good enough (it had a 3 in it), so we decided to head North on that. Confused? Anyhow, after a while, we decided to turn around because it looked like we were just getting deeper in the woods and things weren’t exactly looking like Woodstock.
On the way back out to Rt.28, we came to an intersection were we saw a car pulled over on the side of the road. It looked like a lady had a stick in her tire, so I pulled up behind her to help out. I asked if she would like me to change her tire and she replied, “I would LOVE it if you would change my tire.” Oh yeah, here was my chance to erase about six months worth of sins.
Let’s make the tire change story quick…I changed the tire. How’s that?
The interesting part of the story is this…the reason we stopped is because she had tons of bumper stickers on the back of her car. They were all about stopping the war and about keeping the peace and all that. I get a kick out of that. Obviously she was from the area and we were in the mood to mingle. Stephanie decided to grab a few shots of my heroism.
Now, let me tell you, if this person had bumper stickers that talked about killing people and self righteousness, we would have driven right by. Why? Because you never know what can happen when you stop to help an idiot. Also, we had the little baby in the car and we needed to take extra precautions.
As I was changing the tire, the woman mentioned about how, just yesterday, her friend told her that she needed a cell phone in case of emergency. She replied that she didn’t need one and she would rely on her fellow citizen, just like the old days. I told her about how people stink and how no one helps each other any more. She looked right at me and said, “Yeah, but you stopped.” Hmmm…I thought. Good point. Perhaps I am a little jaded. That’s what the news will do to you.
I guess it’s true that people stop to help others, still in this day and age, but this was a beautiful day on a very slow road. What if she was stuck on the side of a highway? A cell phone would help in that situation, but I think she is plenty happy without.
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